


if fear hasn't killed me yet (then nothing will)

by swordfightingprincess



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Five in the apocalypse, Loneliness, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Survival, Survivor Guilt, The Apocalypse, when you start talking to a mannequin like she's a real person you need to reevaluate your life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22040518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordfightingprincess/pseuds/swordfightingprincess
Summary: He thought the worst had happened. He’d been angry, at his father for making him feel weak, at Luther for always being Perfect Number One, at the whole damn world because he knew he was better than them all, he always had been. He’d been angry, and then he’d time traveled into an apocalyptic wasteland.ORFive and the apocalypse
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	if fear hasn't killed me yet (then nothing will)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write for the Umbrella Academy for a while now, and I've also been looking for an excuse to not write one of the many multichapter fics that I haven't finished, so this seems like a win-win :) 
> 
> Fic title is from War of My Life by John Mayer.

_He tried to jump, back to where he’d came from, but he wasn’t fucking moving._

He thought the worst had happened. He’d been angry, at his father for making him feel weak, at Luther for always being _perfect Number One_ , at the whole damn world because he knew he was better than them all, he always had been. He’d been angry, and then he’d time traveled into an apocalyptic wasteland. 

April 1st 2019. That was not the date of the day he’d left. Which means that it had worked, the thing he’d been telling Dad that he could do for years had finally worked. It had worked, in the worst possible way. 

_Good job Number Five, you got what you wanted._

The sight of the world, the sight of the ruins of what was definitely the academy burning around him, was enough to strike fear into anyone’s heart. Even Number Five. When he saw the burning remnants of his home, a wreckage no one could have survived, his first thought was _the others, where are the others?_

“Vanya! Ben!” the last time he’d seen his siblings flashed through his mind. 

_Vanya quietly shaking her head at him as he picked a fight with Reginald._

_Ben’s head buried in one of his books, shoulders hunched, like he was trying to disappear._

_Allison watching Luther from under her curtain of hair, smiling quietly._

_Luther returning Allison’s glances with a smile of his own. The two of them had always been best friends._

_Klaus ignoring his food, heavily focused on something under the table._

_Diego trying not to glare at Luther as he carved obscene words into the underside of the table._

He waited, but the only reply he got was the roar of the fires burning behind him. Shit.

Five started to move, climbing over piles of rock and hopping around fires, looking for signs of life. Or death, a voice in his head whispered, does this place look alive to you? Five shook his head. They have to be alive, they’re Hargreeves, they don’t just _die._ Soon enough, he thought, I’ll find them, and I can get back to being annoyed with Luther. 

_Denial can only last so long_

It wasn’t long before he found him. Half buried under a pile of rubble, chunks of hair singed off from the flame, Five immediately knew who he was. His heart stopped for a moment, the entire situation seeming infinitely more real. 

When Five saw Klaus, dead, he screamed. 

In no world had Five ever imagined that Klaus would ever be dead. Sure his brother may be on drugs and there was nothing the Hargreeves could do about it, and Five knew that the joints he rolled under the dining room table would someday kill him, but seeing Klaus lying dead on the ground seemed impossible to imagine, yet terrifyingly literal. 

After seeing Klaus dead, the others seemed to jump out at him. Luther with burns on the side of his face. Allison with an arm stretched out, like she’d been reaching for something. Diego, with one hand wrapped loosely around one of the blades he loved so much. 

_No. Impossible. This couldn’t be happening, they aren’t dead. They can’t be._

But they were. They were dead and they weren’t coming back. 

It was all Five could do not to break down right there, in the middle of Hell. 

~

In the end he’d kept his head on long enough to find a building that had been mostly untouched by whatever caused the apocalypse. Sitting among stacks of books, breathing in the smoky air, Five finally allowed himself to think over everything that had happened in the last twelve hours. 

_When Klaus had joked that being thirteen was supposed to be hard, Five hadn’t taken him seriously enough._

It had indeed occurred to him that there had to be food around somewhere, and if he didn’t start looking for it, his stay in the future wouldn’t be very long. He tried not to think about water, but it was hard not to. Water was really the key to his survival, and he was already parched. On the other hand, food seemed like it would be easier to find. 

The sky had gone a hazy shade darker by the time he finds another not-quite-destroyed building. Climbing down through the wreckage reveals a treasure trove of food. He grabs the stuff that’ll spoil soon, filling his arms with it and stumbling back to the library. There he decides to make camp. If he eats and tries to sleep, really if he survives the night, then surely he’ll be able to jump back home in the morning.

He eats a bit, and curls up as small as he can, the smell of smoke lulling him into a fearful sleep. 

~

When he wakes up, his mouth feels dry and his limbs are cramped. Cracking an eye open, he looks past the dust covered bookshelves, far enough out to see the piles of rubble that used to be earth. 

The second day isn’t easier than the first. He eats some of the food he’d found, does some of the stretches that had been long conditioned into him. Then he tries to jump. 

_He couldn’t do it yesterday, what made him think he could do it today?_

It doesn’t work. Every time he tries, doing his damn best to do the same thing he did the day before, his limbs get heavy, almost like the air gets thicker. He tries to picture the exact place he disappeared from, but even with the image sharp in his mind, his powers just don’t seem to work the way he’d trained them to. 

Later in the day —or night, he has no idea how time passes when only fire lights the ashy sky— he finds a case of unopened gatorade buried underneath a crushed car. It’s not water, but it’s fluids and it’ll do for a while. 

_He stays as far away from the burning academy as possible._

He tries to stay away but of course he goes back. Of course. 

He passes their bodies again and it still hits like a punch to the gut. But he doesn’t cry. He read once that crying is the bodies natural reaction to emotion, but he never cries. He isn’t even sure he knows how, and if the sight of his dead siblings doesn’t make him cry he isn’t sure what will. 

The academy, much like the day before, is in shambles. The day before he hadn’t really looked at it, but now he sees it, in all it’s excruciating detail. The once-mighty home of the Umbrella Academy has fallen, and with it, the machines it produced. 

_All but one._

~

He sleeps whenever he feels tired and carves a tally of the days into the ruins of his home. Weeks pass and eventually he stops trying to jump back in time. 

_It never worked anyway._

After about a month he finds a book in the library, a book written by his sister. Inside are 300 pages of Vanya writing down every brutal thing that ever happened in the Hargreeves house. A bunch of the early things he recognized, but as he kept reading, he realized that the world hadn’t stopped just because he’d disappeared. If anything it had gotten worse. For Vanya at least. 

_The section she wrote about Five leaving hurts to read. He wonders what happened to all the snacks she says she left out for him._

~

He’d been stuck in hell for three years, according to his count, when he finds her. A mannequin from a department store, covered in ash and dust, but mostly intact. She’s far from a living person, but she’s the closest thing he’s gonna get. 

He names her Delores. He isn’t sure where he gets the name, but it feels right. At first, he sets her up in his makeshift shelter, doing his best to shield her from the flames that never quite go out. 

It’s another few months before he starts talking to her. Thirteen years of habit had taught him never to talk to anyone, not if he knew what was good for him. So when he starts talking to Delores, it’s a learning curve. 

_Talking to a mannequin Number Five? Have you finally lost it?_

He treats Delores like a real person, because in this apocalyptic wasteland, she’s the closest he’s gonna get. Talking to an inanimate object is by far not the craziest thing he’s done. 

One night, years later, he tells her about his siblings. 

~

He tells her about Luther, the boy who took his title of Number One so seriously, about how he closed himself off in an effort to get Reginald to love him. 

About Diego, the boy who only trusted his mom, and managed to get his hands on superhero comics to read. The boy who was gentle underneath the blades he held. 

About Allison, who was pretty and bubbly and friendly and could lie between her teeth as easily as breathing. The girl who was like a shiny jewel, wrapping herself in rumors to disguise how lonely she was. 

About Klaus who woke at night, screams echoing down the hallway. Who spent free time blowing clouds of smoke from his lips and rolling his sleeves down so no one saw the lines he scratched into his arms.

About Ben who had never asked to be a hero. Who only wanted to read books about explorers and pirates and wizards who killed the monsters and lived happily ever after. The boy who saw himself more in the monsters than the heroes.

About Vanya who spoke less and less as the years went on. Who was proud of the calluses on her fingers from the violin and ashamed of her ordinariness. The girl who reminded Five of a ghost. 

He tells her about the people he’d grown up with, who’s dead bodies had long since decayed and disappeared. 

~

He teaches himself math and science from books he finds. He carves equations into pieces of rubble and hopes that one day they’ll hold the key to getting home. 

He reads Vanya’s book religiously and comes up with a list of things to say when he finds his siblings again. A list of things he never got to tell them. 

He tells Delores everything, and eventually he begins to imagine her talking back. 

He hears her voice inside his head and is reminded of the people he’s lost. 

_Sometimes she was a bit too much like Klaus or Vanya or Ben or Luther or Diego or Allison. That wasn’t supposed to happen, the thought of them wasn’t supposed to drive him insane. But there wasn't anything he could do about it._

Whenever this happens he takes a drink of whatever liquid he’d managed to find, and gets back to work. 

~

A surprising amount of food and drinks had survived the apocalypse, and Five stockpiled as much of it as he could find. Somewhere between years ten and eleven, he swaps the expired energy drinks and soda, for a beer. 

His first priority has always been and would always be survival, but somewhere along the way, a numbing haze to keep the memories at bay became second. He knew it wasn’t healthy, but when he was almost certain he was going to die here, what did it matter. 

_What happened to the boy who thought he could take over the world?_

Delores hates it when he drinks but he does it anyway. 

This is survival, he tells himself. 

This is a punishment, says the little voice in his head that only comes out when he’s sober. Punishment for not being powerful enough or smart enough or strong enough to get back home. He isn’t even sure what home would be like if he did manage to go back. 

Sometimes he forgets that Delores isn’t a real person. It’s just easier that way, pretending the voices aren’t all in his head. 

_Didn’t they tell you that this makes you crazy._

~

The only thing that’s let Five know that time is passing is the faithful notches he’s made in the stone walls of his makeshift shelter. They track the days he’s been here —or at least the number of times he’s woken up. Day and night have very little difference— and remind him that he's getting older, even if the world isn't.

One day he counts the tallies and realizes that he’s so much older than his siblings ever got to be. 

_You always said you’d be better than them all Number Five._

~

It’s been so many years. So many years since he last ate food that wasn’t scavenged and covered in ash. Last worn clothes that weren’t threadbare and stolen from a basement somewhere. Last even thought about learning to shave. 

Last heard a voice that wasn’t his. 

_This is the price you have to pay._

~

When he hears her voice he thinks he’s dreaming. It’s been clear for decades that he’s the only survivor, so he doesn’t jump right into combat mode, but it puts him on edge. 

Then he hears it again, and it’s calling his name. 

~

She calls herself the Handler, and she has a proposition for him. 

He should think about it, ask questions, find out what she really wants. 

But he doesn’t, because if accepting her offer gets him out of this post-apocalyptic wasteland then he’s willing to take that chance. 

_Did no one ever tell you not to trust strangers?_


End file.
